Feature: Ultimate Fun Haver

Wanna Have Fun?

Vaughn Gittin Jr. builds a new F-150 designed for sliding, jumping, and ultimate fun

By Steve Turner
Photos by Stacy Stangz and courtesy of Mustang RTR

If you paid attention to the antics taking place at The SEMA Show’s Ford Out Front display, you undoubtedly saw Vaughn Gittin Jr. sliding around the parking lot. That he was entertaining the crowds and thrilling his passengers is no surprise. It is what Vaughn does. However, that he spent part of his time doing it in an F-150 rather than a Mustang was noteworthy.

Creating a truck that can jump, drift, and conquer off-road terrain is no small feat. To get the job done, Vaughn turned to Kibbetech for a custom suspension that delivers 12 inches of travel. It is based around Air Lift Performance and King Shocks gear.

Of course, if you are regular visitor to our front page, we previewed the truck for you, but seeing the real truck, dubbed the Ultimate Fun Haver, doing its thing in Vegas was an eye-opener.

Watching Vaughn jump, slide, and generally burn rubber in a 2015 EcoBoost F-150, with an automatic no less, was quite impressive.

If you missed it, be sure to check out his All The Rad video from the show:

Seeing it inspired us to catch up with the man himself and get the story behind this unique pickup. We touched base with him while he was out having fun in China.

Those grille accents are certainly reminiscent of the treatment found on Vaughn’s 2015 Mustang RTR…

“I’m not sure if you know this or not but I love to have fun (Like many of the SVTPerformance crew and readers I’m sure!),” Vaughn Gittin Jr. said. “In fact I am a self-proclaimed professional fun-haver! Personally I am all about challenging the norm and trying new things, that mindset is where many success in my life—including RTR—started and I have a passion to try things that might be viewed to not be possible.”

Having known Vaughn, or JR to his friends, for many years now, we could not argue that he loves to have fun. He is living the life most automotive enthusiasts could only dream of, but he lives that life because he has the car control to win drifting championships and the marketing moxie to make a name for himself and the brands that support him. Clearly he has done well for the Ford Mustang, and the company wanted to see what he had up his sleeve for the company’s prime-mover—the F-150.

While it is difficult to compare the feel of driving a truck versus driving a Mustang, Vaughn says they have one thing in common: “It actually works really well. It is well-balanced, and very controllable. Because it is obviously heavier and long you really have to be ahead of your inputs, where the Mustang’s react almost immediately,” he explained. “It’s really apples and oranges, but did I mention the fun level is absurd like a Mustang?”

“For the Ultimate Fun Haver I wanted to build something different, something so far against the norm or what is expected of me given how much I love Mustang. The vision was to build something that could support every bit of fun that I could ever imagine, something that could support my adrenaline and smile addiction all in one easily adjustable functional setup,” he added. What is this fun I dream of? Jumping, drifting, carving canyons, and cruising the streets. I absolutely love trucks and fell in love with the new 2015 F-150 at the design studio a couple years ago.”

Lurking up the sleeve of his driving suit was the concept for a wild, cross-genre pickup that could perform in all the venues of his dreams.

“We had some non-truck-styled custom flares made by the crew at Auto Explosion,” Vaughn explained. “We wrapped the factory Ingot Silver with Xpel Stealth film. This is a matte-clear, self-healing protective film used on a lot of high-end cars. We made some custom, one-off wheels designed by my RTR team and, of course, wrapped them in 35-inch Nitto Terra Grappler G2 tires installed a ASDMotorsports.com handbrake and let the fun begin!”

“So, once I learned the new F150 was eligible for SEMA builds I submitted a proposal for a four-door EcoBoost F-150. The plan was to put a custom suspension on it that could support all the fun, so I went with a custom Air Lift Performance setup for ride height adjustability and King shocks to control whatever abuse I wanted to toss at this thing,” Vaughn said. “I had the unbelievable crew at Kibbetech complete the build including design a custom front and rear suspension that offers 12 inches of travel. And, of course, you have to share fun so we put five Recaro Sportsters and Takata Harnesses in to keep everyone from bouncing around the cab while I get crazy behind the wheel.”

To ramp up the power needed to throw this big truck around, Vaughn turned to some familiar names.

The Air Lift Performance gear allows the truck to have clearance for off-roading or a low center of gravity for drifting.

“We installed a K&N intake and Magnaflow made us a custom side-exit exhaust and my man Adam (Browne) from Revolution Automotive worked his tuning magic to get the throttle and transmission to react exactly how I wanted it,” Vaughn said.

However, despite increasing the truck’s output, he wasn’t looking to measure the gains on a racetrack or a dyno. He wanted a more human measurement for the truck’s modifications, but that’s not to say Vaughn doesn’t have big plans for the truck’s performance.

“Performance was to be measured by the amount and duration of smiles that the truck offered,” Vaughn said. “So far, just from SEMA, I think all expectations were surpassed as my face hurt from smiling so much and the many passenger were having a blast as well.”

It sure seemed like everyone was having fun at the Ford Out Front event…

“On a serious note, it had to drift, jump, perform off-road and be able to drive on the street as a daily. We achieved all of those goals and we are looking forward to continue developing it,” he added. “Perhaps we will take a cruise to Baja (for fun not competition) once we dial it in a bit better. I am most excited about turning up the power a bit. I hope to get 500 to 600 lb-ft of torque out of that 3.5 EcoBoost soon!”

Knowing that Vaughn has a line of Mustang RTRs, we couldn’t help but wonder what the UFH F-150 means for the future. Could we see him bring All The Rad to the world of trucks? Could an RTR F-150 be in the offing?

“Well, damn! Talk about putting me on the spot. Let’s just say this project might have had a little bit of underlying ‘market assessment’ to it and response has blown my mind,” he confessed. “For a while I have felt that trucks are not just for working job sites and hauling stuff anymore. Perhaps in the future it will be time to challenge the norm when it comes to the expectations of a Ford F-150.”